


We Could Be Immortal

by astudyinfic



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Dark Q, James Bond is hard to kill, M/M, Q kills his soul mates, Sort Of, Soul Mate AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-25
Updated: 2018-06-25
Packaged: 2019-05-28 06:42:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15043025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astudyinfic/pseuds/astudyinfic
Summary: In a world where you stop aging at some point in your life and only start once more when you are with your soul mate, Q would prefer not to stay this age forever.  So he chooses to get rid of his soul mate.  Again and again and again.But this incarnation is proving to be very difficult to kill.





	We Could Be Immortal

**Author's Note:**

> Based off a prompt I saw on FB and thought would be a lot of fun. 
> 
> Also, hello Bond fandom! It's been awhile. I promise I haven't forgotten our beloved 00Q. Just fell hard for a ship and a character in another fandom. But I promise I have another fic in process for our beloved ship as well. :)

For five hundred years, he tried avoiding them.  Took a vow of celibacy and joined a monastery. Became a hermit.  Moved far and often. But every time they found him, which really left only one choice.  

They had to die.

It was nothing personal.  Part of him would like to settle down and live the rest of his life with someone he loved.  But he’d lived too long now to give it up. No, his soul mate had to die so he could keep living.  

Living for so long brought its own challenges.  He'd changed his name so often, he no longer remembered which one was correct.  Instead, he simply called himself Q. He didn't use that with anyone else, of course.  That name was for him alone. Maybe if he ever got tired of this life, he would pick a real name and finally settle down with the one.  

But he didn't see that happening any time soon.

Every time was the same.  After so many meetings, he could recognize his soul mate within minutes.  They had the same tells and ticks. The mannerisms never changed as the face, name, even gender did.  But inside, it was the same person. And if Q stopped to let himself think about what he was doing, he might actually feel bad about it.

But he realized when he passed his fiftieth birthday without aging that if he just killed his soul mate, he could live forever.  It was simple enough. He met his soul mate a few years later and when he found his first grey hair, he disposed of the man the next day.  He'd been sweet. Wonderful, even. Q had so many things he wanted to do with his life, however, that he could not be tied to one simple lifetime.  It wasn't right.

So he had to die.  

Q didn't account for reincarnation.

Time after time, his soul mate died at his hands.  The methods changed - no sense in alerting anyone to what he was doing - but the result was always the same.  Q would age a few days to a few weeks and then kill the person who caused it. Another thirty years or so, his soul mate returned and the cycle repeated itself.

The first few deaths, Q cried for days after the fact.  It wasn't lost on him that this person was supposed to be the one for him and he just murdered them in order to keep living.  It was a horrible thing to do and he did feel pain for what he'd done. But after his first century, there wasn't much feeling involved at all.  They were dispatched with ruthless efficiency and he went on with his day.

Until...

 _Until_...

The moment he stepped into the art museum, he knew.  There was no mistaking the fact that the man in front of him was his soul mate.  He'd stopped aging later than most but it was still him. Q sighed. This one, at least, would be easy.  He wouldn't even need to disappear afterward. The nice thing about double-oh agents was their short life expectancy.  A couple of misfortunate events over the course of the mission and Q could go back to living forever as he intended.

Staring at the painting in front of him, Q sighed as he sat down next to the man known as 007.  He couldn't help but feel like the ship in the painting.

"Always makes me feel a little melancholy," he started, eyes never leaving the painting.  "A grand old warship being ignominiously hauled away for scrap." Unfortunately, that was how life was.  Sooner or later, you weren't useful anymore and it was time for them to go. James Bond, soul mate or not, needed to go.  Otherwise, Q couldn't continue. "The inevitability of time, don't you think? What do you see?”

He nearly laughed as the man scoffed, “A bloody big ship. Excuse me.”  

“I'm your new Quartermaster.”  Q couldn’t believe his luck, finding a job that worked to his skills, allowed him an easy method of dispatching his soul mate, and let him use his chosen name.  It was almost too easy.

“You must be joking.”

He knew his predecessor.  A good man who didn’t deserve to die the way he did, Silva's blast taking out Q's mentor and creating a job opening all in one.  But Q also knew that he looked vastly different from every quartermaster who came before him.  

“Why, because I'm not wearing a lab coat?

“Because you still have spots,” his soul mate scoffed and Q briefly wondered if he knew who he was, who they were supposed to be to one another.  He wondered if Bond had any idea just how old the person sitting next to him really was.

"I'm older than I look," he muttered.  No matter how old he was, how much he believed himself to be above the silliness of society, Q still hated to be underestimated.  He could have let it go but that wasn't like him, so he started to mouth off about how much he could do without ever getting dressed in the morning.  

James looked amused by his ranting, which only served to infuriate him more.  "Then what do you need me for?" the insufferable agent asked.

"Every now and then a trigger has to be pulled."  And if Q was already planning ways to dispatch his irritating (and irritatingly attractive) soul mate, that was for him alone to know.  

007 continued to smirk, "Or not pulled.  It's hard to know in your pyjamas. Q."

For a brief moment, Q forgot about what he was doing and about what he needed to do.  When James Bond smiled at him and said his name o(r at least the name he called himself), he briefly wanted to know what a life lived with his soul mate would be like.  "007," he greeted back.

But it didn't take long before he remembered himself and gave Bond his kit.  A gun and a radio. Technically enough to do the job but considering the files he'd read about the most notorious agent, he rather doubted that James could finish any mission without a handful of gadgets at his disposal.  "What were you expecting? An exploding pen? We don't really go in for that kind of thing anymore." And with one last smile, Q sent his agent out into the world, not expecting him to ever return.

To his surprise, James returned.  By all accounts, he should be dead.  But there he was, standing there battered and bruised but very much alive.  "I fed your gun to a Komodo dragon," he said with a smirk and walked away, leaving Q sputtering in anger.     
James Bond needed to die.  

The next mission, Q was certain this would kill him.  It was a suicide mission of the highest order and he was rather surprised Mallory would assign it to James considering what a successful agent he was.  But there was no retirement from the double-oh profession, just death, so maybe this was what Mallory considered a retirement plan. Either way, it served Q's interests.  He found a grey hair the night before the mission and was ready to just off him himself if that was what it took.

And yet again, James returned.  A few extra bullet holes, to be sure, and his gun was destroyed again (what was it with him and disrespecting both Q's work and his property, along with his desire for James to just die already?).  "You'll have to try harder than that," James winked and walked away without another word.

He knew?

He knew.

The next mission, Q stepped back and let him do it himself, hoping that maybe he would die if he didn't have Q's interference.  He let the agent run the mission as he saw fit. This time he returned even more broken, spending several nights in the infirmary before being sent home.  Q was tempted to break in and just pull the plug but it turned out he wasn't actually on life support so that wouldn't work.

Plus, he was starting to believe that James might come back even stronger than ever were he to actually do it.

When the next mission rolled around, James showed up in his office and closed his door.  "Q."

"007."  He barely looked at the man but every part of him was attuned to him as he stalked around his office, like a panther circling its kill.  Or that was how Q felt at that moment. Like prey.

He'd lived for centuries and never felt so mortal as he did at that moment.

When James stopped pacing, Q finally looked up at him, waiting for him to say something.  "At first, I thought you were working for one of England's many enemies," was what James said and Q raised a brow at that.  "But it doesn't seem like you are trying to take down the Crown. Only me. Which raised the question of why. As far as I can tell, we've never met before."

Dropping a file on Q's desk in front of him, James leaned over him, staring at him unblinking.  "But that isn't true, is it? I mean, I've never met you before but you've met me. Time and again for what seems to be at least five hundred years.  But before I get to know you, you take matters into your own hands."

Q tentatively opened the file, already knowing what he would find.  Accounts of his many murders of his soul mate. Some pictures of him that had been taken since the invention of the camera.  This file was an account of his life; the good, the bad, and the, well, evil.

"So, what are you going to do about this?" Q asked, closing the file and looking back at James.  His heart was pounding in his chest, wondering if this was the time his soul mate killed him instead of the other way around.  

In all his years, he’d never considered this happening to him.

He didn't like it much.

"One date," James said, pulling him from his thoughts.  "When I get back from this mission - where you won't try to sabotage me or get me killed - and we go out on one date.  If, after that, you still want to kill me, feel free to keep trying. If not, I'll kill you now, show them the file, and get a commendation in my record, moving on without any guilt.  Which you seem to have been doing for centuries."

It was really a no-brainer.  No matter how long Q lived, he didn't have the training where he could stop James Bond were he to decide Q needed to die.  "Fine, I accept. But don't expect too much. You've never managed to convince me in the past and you've been much prettier than this before."

James smirked, damn him, and left the room without another word.  

This was not going the way he intended.  Why wouldn't his soul mate just die so he could move on with his life?

As Q expected at this point, James Bond returned from the mission very much alive.  Which meant he now had to go on a date with his soul mate, the same one he'd been killing for centuries.  

James picked him up two nights later, holding the door for him like a gentleman.  Q climbed in, half expecting that he would be dead before they reached the restaurant but to his surprise, James really did mean a date.  "Why did you want a date?" he asked the moment they were sitting at the table. "If I found out someone had been killing me for hundreds of years, I would want to kill them and be done with it."

"You've had months to kill me and haven't yet.  So either every previous incarnation of me has been too easy of a target, or you are failing for a reason.  Whichever it is, I'm curious to get to know you, to ask why I've had to die so many times." James sipped his martini, looking too nonplussed for Q's comfort.  He was on edge and wished to order a strong drink but worried that he would end up dead if he lost even a moment's of concentration.

"Your previous lives have been too easy, too trusting.  Most didn't even know who I was before I got to them. It wasn't anything personal.  I have so many things I want to do with my life and one lifetime would never be enough.  I was fifty the first time I met you and when I started to age, I panicked. The first few times I cried for days, even weeks afterward.  Now, I barely think about it. Until you." Why was James so hard to kill? Sure, he was a well-trained killer himself and probably knew how to avoid the most obvious of attacks but surely by now, if Q really wanted him dead, it would have happened.  

James waited while he thought, even going so far as to order dinner for them both while Q sat, brow furrowed.  Finally, he sighed and shrugged. "You are interesting. I'm not sure why. None of your other lives were as old as you when they stopped aging so part of me wants to know what is different this time.  I've lived a long time, James. Finding things that are new and interesting are a challenge." It was more than that though. Q was tired. He was tired of always wondering when his soul mate would return, always looking over his shoulder.  Maybe growing old with someone wouldn’t be so bad.

Dying, though.  He wasn’t ready for that.  

Judging the nature of Q’s silence, James sipped his martini and ordered a second.  “Might I propose something?”

“Please.”  Q smiled, hopeful that James would have an answer to the issue that was circling in his mind.

“The nature of my job is that I will not live long.  Even if I do, I have enough terrible habits that my life will end far earlier than a typical Englishman.  As you have already pointed out, I am older than you. Most likely, even if we decide to be together, the most you would get from me is ten to twenty years.  You would still be fairly young after I pass and could continue on. And I would get to spend what remains of my life with the person I’m meant to be with, something I’ve never had in any of my previous lives if those files are to be believed.  

It was a solid plan.  Q honestly couldn’t see a downside to it.  And he could find out what it was like to live with his soul mate, something everyone around him seemed to enjoy.  “Alright,” he said with a nod. “But if you annoy me, I will kill you.”

“You can try,” James replied and Q smirked.  

Yes.  This could be fun.


End file.
